Training Program Curriculum

Internal Medicine/Psychiatry

Education and Curriculum

Over the course of the combined 5 year of residency, you can
expect to rotate through a broad range of inpatient and outpatient settings,
including numerous integrated Internal Medicine and Psychiatry experiences.

Internship: During the 18 month internship, residents will
alternate every three months between internal medicine and psychiatry
rotations. Interns also start a weekly internal medicine continuity clinic,
where they will care for a panel of patients in a longitudinal setting for the
duration of their 5 years in residency.

Year 2: Residents continue to alternate every
three month and can begin to customize their rotations towards their clinical
interests. In addition to their weekly internal medicine clinic, residents
begin alternating this clinic with an integrated Internal Medicine and
Psychiatry clinic caring for homeless veterans at the VA with Dr. Elizabeth
Call.

Year
3: Similar to year 2, Medicine
and Psychiatry are alternated every 3 months. The internal medicine weekly
continuity clinic is alternated with an elective integrated Med/Psych clinic,
options include an integrated Sickle Cell Clinic, supervised by Dr. Temeia
Martin, or an HIV Psychiatry Clinic co-located in the infectious disease clinic,
supervised by Dr. Edward Kantor.

Year 4: Residents will spend the first
six months of their fourth year doing internal medicine rotations. Residents
will continue to have an outpatient medicine clinic in addition to beginning a
psychiatry clinic (rotating with the internal medicine clinic) of their
choosing. The second half of the year residents will begin 12 continuous
months of outpatient psychiatry which will continue into the fifth year of
training. The outpatient psychiatry year includes six months of child
psychiatry and six months of psychiatry at the local community health center.
In addition, residents return as senior residents in the integrated Med/Psych
clinic at the VA, and also work with Med/Psych Program Director Dr. Barth in
the Integrated Behavioral Medicine / Chronic Pain clinic. Longitudinal Internal
medicine clinic is continued during this year. In addition to several half-days of general psychiatry clinic,
residents are offered a wide variety of options for elective psychiatry clinics
including women’s reproductive psychiatry, sleep and anxiety clinic, University
Counseling and Psychiatry Services (CAPS), VA Substance Treatment and Recovery
(STAR), HIV Psychiatry, Integrated Sickle Cell Clinic, Pain Rehabilitation,
College of Charleston outpatient psychiatry, and Brain Stimulation outpatient
consults. Residents receive weekly supervision in psychodynamic therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy, psychopharmacology, and psychiatry.

Year 5: After concluding the year of psychotherapy
(finishing in December of the 5th year), residents will finish their
training with six months of internal medicine electives, targeted towards
career goals following residency.

Didactics

Internal medicine didactics include morning report three days a
week, weekly grand rounds, and weekly academic half days (protected time). Psychiatry
didactics during the first three years include weekly seminars. During the year
of outpatient psychiatry residents have two full half days of seminars. Topics
include psychopharmacology, psychiatric diagnosis and management, and
psychotherapy (including cognitive-behavioral approaches, psychodynamic
psychotherapy, and introduction to psychoanalytic psychotherapy). All
Med/Psych residents attend a weekly resident run Med/Psych noon conference on
Wednesday’s at noon. These noon conferences include case reports led by
residents, monthly journal club, board review, and also serve as a weekly
meeting to discuss Med/Psych business and address any resident’s questions
about their progress or current rotations.

Electives

In addition to general internal medicine and psychiatry
rotations, med/psych residents have opportunities to explore their interests
through a variety of electives in both psychiatry and internal medicine. Psychiatry
elective include: brain stimulation (transcranial magnetic stimulation,
electroconvulsive therapy, vagal nerve stimulation, transcranial direct current
stimulation), forensics, women’s reproductive psychiatry, sleep and anxiety
clinic, University counseling and Psychiatry Services (CAPS), VA substance use
clinic, HIV psychiatry, Integrated Sickle Cell clinic, Pain Rehabilitation, and
College of Charleston outpatient psychiatry, among several others. Internal
medicine electives include all internal medicine subspecialties (both inpatient
and outpatient), palliative care, dermatology, orthopedics, research and
numerous others. Residents also have the option to participate in a monthly
integrated clinic at the CARES free clinic, during which they work with other
Med/Psych residents, faculty and students interested in integrated practice.

Research

As part of the internal medicine and psychiatry curriculums, all
residents are expected to participate in scholarly activity, including a
quality improvement project. Residents are also able to apply for the DART
(Drug Abuse Research Training) research track - if accepted they are given protected
time both in the form of elective months as well as protected half-days during
the outpatient year to complete a research project of their choice with a
research mentor. Recent Med/Psych graduates of the DART program have included
Dr. Jennifer Jones, Dr. Benjamin Kalivas, and Dr. Sarah Oros.

Mentorship

Residents are paired with a longitudinal attending mentor based on their
clinical interests to provide guidance over the course of their residency. They
are also paired with a resident mentor who can help with the transition into
residency, provide feedback on rotations, and otherwise give advice with
general issues during their time in residency.

Professional Society

Residents are strongly
encouraged to join the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry. Attendance at
the annual conference in the fall is also strongly encouraged.